Details for Food and Health

Awards offering Food and Health

This unit is offered as a part of the following awards:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary)
• Bachelor of Education (Secondary)

Unit Content

Curriculum Objective

Like all Geography courses at Alphacrucis College, Food and Health is designed to help students understand the distinctive nature of Geography as a subject that links the physical and human facets of our environment, focussing on the processes of spatial interactions and their patterns in both time and space.  Building upon the understandings of population and development developed in GEO101, GEO301 Food and Health examines the dietary changes and epidemiological changes that accompany economic development in which diseases of poverty become less common and diseases of affluence become more common.  Starting with a study of global patterns of nutrition and disease, the course uses a systems approach to examine the diffusion of both disease and agricultural innovations, concluding with an investigation into future possibilities for sustainable agriculture and improved health.  The course helps students develop skills of critical thinking by applying creative problem-solving, reflection and discernment to the interactions between people and their environments, thus exploring patterns of behaviour that aid understanding of how we know what we claim to know.

Outcomes

1. Assess the relative adequacy of various health indicators as means of providing a comprehensive overview of global patterns and trends in nutrition and disease amelioration.
2. Apply the data from multiple variables to construct an integrated overview of the broad world pattern of vulnerability to disease and malnutrition.
3. Explain the health and/or nutrition problems that arise from the causes identified from image studies, including the sequence of processes leading from the causes to the problems.
4. Describe the world distribution and the intensity of a range of health and nutrition challenges, formulate and recommend realistic solutions.
5. Apply relevant statistics to evaluate the health and nutrition of the population living in the student’s town/suburb/city.
6. Compare and contrast the health and nutrition of the population living in the student’s town/suburb/city with (a) national levels of health and nutrition, and (b) global levels of health and nutrition.
7. Synthesise and apply the understandings gained throughout course to explain why health and nutrition standards in the student’s town/suburb/city deviate from national and global levels, noting also the policy implications of this in the context of Christian ethics and social justice.

Subject Content

• Global patterns in food and nutrition indicators
• Global patterns in health indicators
• Sustainability and food production
• Diffusion
• Measures to improve health and nutrition
• Famine
• Solutions to food insecurity
• Prevention and treatment of disease

This course may be offered in the following formats

• Face to Face (onsite)
• Distance/E-learning (online)

Please consult your course prospectus or enquire about how and when this course will be offered next at Alphacrucis University College.

Assessment Methods

• Data review and reflection (20%)
• Minor Essay (30%)
• Major Project (50%)